Credible end to IRA activity needed, says Hain

REACTION:The IRA will have to be crystal clear it is ending all illegal activity if it is to gain the confidence of others in the peace process, Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain warned tonight.

Mr Hain said the IRA had to end all paramilitary and criminal activity after a report from the four member Independent Monitoring Commission revealed that it remains heavily involved in criminality and is training new recruits.

As the IRA continued to debate Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams's call for the organisation to abandon the armed struggle for the democratic alternative, Mr Hain told reporter: "There has got to be crystal clarity from the IRA on the ending of paramilitary and criminal activity.

"It has to be definitive and credible. The IRA has no cause for complaint on that demand.

But  Sinn Féin said today the report published by the International Monitoring Commission (IMC) today has "little or no credibility".

The party's Assembly member for South Belfast, Mr Alex Maskey, said: the commission "was set up at the behest of the unionists and is the tool of the British securocrats".

Mr Maskey added: "This report like the previous reports is based solely on the information provided to the IMC by the securocrats. It like previous reports has little or no credibility and is neither impartial, fair nor balanced."

In a statement this morning the Government said the report presented "a disturbing picture in relation to the ongoing criminal activity of paramilitary groups, both loyalist and republican.

"The Government continues to be satisfied that the full implementation of the Good Friday Agreement is the best way of ensuring a peaceful society and a stable political situation in Northern Ireland," the statement said.

The Labour Party said the report reflects a society living in the midst of illegal organisations armed to the teeth.

Deputy leader Liz McManus attacked the "duplicity" of republicans in negotiating a political deal last autumn, while planning major robberies and making no effort to end racketeering, punishment beatings, and criminality.

Ms McManus said Gerry Adams's call on the IRA to embrace politics "may have been little more than a pre-election effort to win votes for Sinn Féin", given the report's revelations about new arms finds, training and recruiting.

"All paramilitary organisations, including loyalist paramilitaries who are similarly indicted for serious crime, beatings and even murder, must face up to the will of the people and end all their activities," she said.

The Democratic Unionist Party's Nigel Dodds said the IMC's fifth report was "a damning indictment of what the IRA was doing during a period when we were told that they were preparing to sign up for a new deal.

"Anyone who thinks that Sinn Féin can be brought into government any time soon should read this report in detail and see just how deeply ingrained in the Provisional movement the whole litany of paramilitary and criminal activity is.

"This report is a further vindication of the tough stance the DUP has taken that the government of Northern Ireland must not be corrupted by admitting the Provisional movement into it," Mr Dodds said.